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Facts About Medical Marijuana
- One of the active chemicals in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). THC is the main component responsible for marijuana's mind-altering effect. For decades, scientists have been studying THC’s potential medical uses to determine its validity and found that it may help treat a variety of conditions including nausea, glaucoma, pain and multiple sclerosis.
- Medical marijuana advocates argue that marijuana provides medical benefits for cancer and AIDS patients by increasing appetite and decreasing nausea and it has been shown to assist some glaucoma, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis patients.
- Twelve states have compassionate use laws: Alaska, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, Montana, Washington. In these states, patients with a doctor’s note are protected from state prosecution. Anyone who uses marijuana for any reason is vulnerable to Federal anti-drug laws, arrest and prosecution.
- According to Americans for Safe Access, several state legislatures are currently considering medical marijuana, including: Illinois, New York, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota and Massachusetts.
- The California Compassionate Use Act provides that certain criminal statutes prohibiting the possession and cultivation of marijuana shall not apply to a patient (or caregiver) "who possesses or cultivates marijuana for the personal medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician."
- According to information dated March 30, 2007, from the Colorado patient registry system, the average age of patients registered in the Medical Marijuana program for the state is 43 and patients range in age from 17-80 years old.
- The Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base was neither a blanket endorsement nor a dismissal of the medical marijuana use concluding “[C]annabis and its derivatives have shown promise in the treatment of a variety of disorders.” The report said that the active ingredients in marijuana were useful in controlling pain, nausea and lack of appetite in very seriously ill patients. The experts called for further research and development of "safer" pills and inhalers based on chemicals found in marijuana cautioning that marijuana smoke delivers harmful substances found in tobacco smoke. It called for further research to conclusively determine whether habitual marijuana smoking causes cancer.
